Choices
by Pumpernickel
Summary: What if Morrigan had asked Alistair to do the ritual herself, without the Warden there to talk him into it? One-shot.


_As always, Bioware pwnz - err, **owns** - everything._

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"Are you insane? How can you even suggest something like...like _that?_" I didn't even attempt to hide the disgust in my voice. "Even if you weren't the most vile, poisonous, _evil_ woman I've ever met...I would never do that to her. Ever."

Morrigan opened her mouth to speak but I cut her off, voice rising with the sudden outrage that flooded me completely. "And _you!_ She trusted you, defended you, called you friend – and this is how you repay her? By betraying her?"

I never thought I'd live to see the day I could get any real emotion out of the witch, but there it was. Cheeks flushing and eyes blazing, she jabbed one bony finger into my chest to punctuate every word she spoke in a voice that, had I not been so blind with fury myself, would have utterly terrified me.

"I am not betraying her."

I snorted, swatting her arm away with far more force than I would, under any other circumstances, use with a woman. "Oh, _right. _I suppose she knows all about this then?"

"You would suppose correctly."

That should have given me pause, but my mouth had a habit of barreling through situations before my brain had a chance to catch up. "Then why are you even asking me? If she said no, then I say no, end of story."

"She didn't say no, you fool!"

My blood ran cold, icy dread chasing out all the hot rage that had blazed through my veins seconds before. There was no way I heard her correctly, no way that my best friend, my love, my _future wife_ would ever agree to something like this. There was _no way._

"...what did you say?" I asked slowly, uncomprehendingly.

"_I said,_" she reiterated, the words like acid on her tongue, "that our gracious leader, for reasons I cannot even begin to comprehend, wanted to leave the decision up to you."

Up to me? I stared at her blankly, mouth agape.I could barely get my boots on the correct feet in the morning, and she was going to leave _this_ up to _me?_

Morrigan must have noticed my utter astonishment, because she gave me a look that could only be described as mockingly sympathetic. "She did not look happy about it, I assure you, no doubt realizing how pathetically incapable you are of making a decision – but nevertheless she insisted that it was not her choice to make."

My first instinct was to snap that if it was my choice, then my answer should be obvious – the Maker himself could command me to get into bed with that snake and I still wouldn't do it. That she was horrid and revolting and Andraste's blood why were we even discussing the possibility? And why was this all up to me anyway? It was going to affect the woman I loved just as much, why wasn't she here to give me her input?

I wanted to be angry with her for throwing me to the wolves without any guidance at all, but then it dawned on me – she had to. If she would have given me her opinion, would I have been able to make an unbiased decision? Probably not. I would have gone along with what she thought was best, just like I did at the Landsmeet. Because I trusted her.

And now she trusted me. She trusted me to make the right decision, and despite my abject horror of the entire situation, I felt my heart swell up with pride, and with love. I would never deserve her – but I'd do my damnedest to try, starting right now.

The only problem was I had no idea what to do.

"Be killed by the Archdemon, or sleep with you. How does someone make that kind of choice?" I said in my trademark laugh-it-off voice – except this time I wasn't really joking.

She ran a finger down my chest and smiled – not a smirk, but an actual smile. It looked so wrong on her face. "Oh _Alistair,_" she said, drawing my name out in a way that made me immediately uncomfortable, "Believe me when I say that you will not hate it quite so much as you believe."

My stomach heaved violently when I realized what she was getting at – the smile, the touch, the _purr..._

"If that is your attempt at seducing me, Morrigan, save yourself the trouble. It's making me ill," I choked out, bile rising in my throat. Even my body didn't want anything to do with her.

And there I had my answer. I couldn't do this. Lying with Morrigan would taint me just as surely as drinking darkspawn blood did, and worse, it would taint the act itself. Take something amazing and perfect and right and twist it into something painful and coerced and utterly wrong. My entire being was screaming at me to get away from her before she poisoned me, my relationship, everything.

If it was to be my choice…I chose no.

Morrigan's face darkened back into it's usual scowl as I pushed her hand away once more, turning to leave. I needed to get out of here, away from this bloodsucking lunatic and back into the warm, safe, loving arms I should have been in this whole time. Nothing could stop me from spending what may be my last night in this world with the one person I wanted to spend it with.

"She'll die, you know."

Nothing except that. My stomach dropped to my feet, and I felt all the blood leave my face in a rush.

"She would never let you make the sacrifice. You know that. She loves you too much," Morrigan said, voice quiet. I turned and she caught my gaze, her golden cat eyes intense and earnest in a way I had never seen before. "She will take the final blow to save you…and she will die."

My heart clenched painfully on those last three words, feeling dizzy and sick as they ran through my mind again and again. I knew they were true. Even as I tried to make desperate attempts at denying them – I wouldn't let her, I'd find a way to stop her, Riordan would pull through and take the fall – I knew that if it came down to it, that woman would knock me out herself before she let me come to harm.

She had thrown herself between me and an ogre in the Tower of Ishal when she barely even knew me, and she'd been protecting me ever since. And not just from the darkspawn, either. She'd become my queen to protect me from the harshness of politics, she'd stood up for me when Goldanna had ripped me apart, she saved me from my own guilt and misery when Duncan died. It was always her waking me when the nightmares were too real, soothing me when the stress got to be too much, making me laugh when I'd rather cry. She was everything to me.

An image flashed through my mind unbidden – a perfect memory of her straddling the dragon atop the Andraste's Temple mountainside. The way the sunlight played through her hair, sparkled in her eyes, shimmered off the edge of her blade was almost too glorious to behold. She was so beautiful in that moment that it took my breath away – so strong and brave and crazy enough to pull it all off.

Then the memory twisted into a premonition – a vision of her turning to me and smiling. Not the smile I knew and adored, but a different one. A smile filled with sadness, and fear...and love. A smile that made her look like a fallen angel accepting her fate. A smile that broke my heart so thoroughly I feared it would never be whole again. Then she plunged her blade into the dragon's head, and the smile faded from her lips...and with a shudder, she was gone.

_No._

My hands were shaking as I grabbed Morrigan's arm, pulling her roughly towards the bed. I didn't know how sleeping with her was going to keep us alive. I didn't care. The witch could suck out my soul and feed it to a demon if it would keep my love from the fate I'd just witnessed.

To save that woman, I would do anything. I blew out the candle.

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_Author's Note: I've always kind of hated the fact that the Warden gets the final say in so much of Alistair's life - whether or not he becomes King, helps his sister, if they save Connor/Isolde which are pretty much his family...etc. I know that it's a game mechanic - Bioware wants the player to make the big choices - but I've always wanted Alistair to be like WTF BACK UP AND LET ME TALK! (I know he has opinions, especially with Connor/Isolde, but they're all so easily checked by persuasion that they're rendered useless in actual decision making.) With the to-sex-or-not-to-sex-Morrigan decision especially, it seemed so slimy that the Warden was there as a buffer, to "talk him into it". Like, I've made the poor bastard (hurr hurr) King against his will already - let him at least decide who he's going to knock up, yeah?_

_Hence the inspiration for this fic. XD_


End file.
